


In Love With Your Ghost

by BarefootGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Podfic Welcome, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4710095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight Verses.<br/>Eight Scenes.<br/>Two Idiots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. shadowing my dreams

_There’s a letter on the desktop that I dug out of a drawer  
The last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war   
And I start to feel the fever of the warm air through the screen   
You come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams._

He’d been sleeping when the air changed. It wasn’t anything Dean could describe – not a chill, or a sudden warmth, or even the way you could tell if someone had opened the door somewhere else. Maybe, if you had to pinpoint it, the way the air got heavier just before a storm broke loose, slamming rain down out of nowhere and the wind whipping up fierce enough to knock you over. The instant before, when everything was still calm, but you knew that wasn’t going to last.

Still laying on his side, he considered ignoring the sensation, trying to go back to sleep. Half the time the angel would flap off, even his wings sounding pissy. But half the time he stayed and got pissy, and Dean was just too damn tired for that, tonight. Slowly, he swung to the side of the bed, put his feet on the ground, and looked up.

“Castiel. Angel of the Lord. What can we do for you this time?”

He noted that the angel still didn’t have a clue about sarcasm. Or personal space, for that matter. Anyone else he would have shouldered out of the way, the level of aggression involving depending on how in his face they’d gotten. But Castiel wasn’t looking for a fight.

And – remembering the blade stuck into the guy’s chest to no effect, and the grip the bastard had – Dean wasn’t about to shove him. Not unless he was willing to take a beat-down in the process. The angel might claim that he – or God, whatever – had a purpose for Dean, but it’d never been said that Dean had to be in factory-issue shape to do it.

“Castiel? You there?” He narrowed his eyes, staring at the angel. Tough to read that face, but he was pretty sure that something was wrong. “Castiel?”

And then whatever it was he might have seen was gone. “You have been hunting a popobawa.”

“A- what?”

“A popobawa. It is an African shapeshifter. It sodomizes its victims, and - “

“Yeah we got that part,” Dean said. “And so far, salt and cold iron makes it pissed but doesn’t kill it. Got any ideas?” They were running on empty; at this point he’d take any help they could get.

“Yes.” Those blue eyes stared at him, the whole not-blinking thing really getting on his nerves. Then Castiel looked away, a brief turn of his head, and Dean could breathe again.

“Pig’s blood.”

“What?”

“Pig’s blood. Coat it liberally with the blood of a pig.”

They could do this, Dean thought, not quite sure that ‘this’ was. When they were talking about a job, when they were talking about shit that had to be done, that could be done, ordinary things, it almost felt like talking to Sammy. “That will kill it?”

“It believes that pigs are unclean. That strong a belief…” The angel almost shrugged, and apparently decided not to get into their usual back and forth about faith. “That will stop it.”

Dean stared at the angel, then sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Yeah. All right, thanks, I-“

He looked up again at the almost-expected rustle of wings halfway through his words. “Damn it. They don’t say goodbye in heaven, or something?”


	2. pinprick to my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight Verses.  
> Eight Scenes.  
> Two Idiots.

_The Mississippi’s mighty, but it starts in Minnesota  
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down   
And I guess that’s how you started like a pinprick to my heart   
But at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown _

“You are injured.”

The gravely voice almost didn’t make him start any more. Which was a good thing, considering. “Yeah well, comes with the territory.” He managed to take a sip with his left hand without jostling his right side, where Sam was stitching up the cut. It wasn’t too bad as these things went, maybe six inches across and not near anything Dean might need later. Another hunt, another scar. Considering he’d lost a lifetime’s accumulation when the angel had “gripped him tight,” Dean wasn’t worrying about picking up another one. Chicks liked a few scars, as long as they weren’t on the face.

“Hey Castiel.” Sam was still trying to make nice with Castiel, although his original gosh wow had gone way the hell down on discovering that angels were dicks. 

“Sam.” No hesitation in the name, no hint of ‘abomination’ or whatever. Castiel must’ve finally gotten the memo that you don’t diss Sammy when Dean is in the room. Or the planet, for that matter.

And then the angel was standing too close to him – again! – and there were two fingers on the side of his head, the never-gonna-not-be-weird sting. Sam swore, pulling his hand back way too fast. 

“Huh.” Dean looked down and saw that the wound had closed up on its own, leaving no trace, even where Sam had already stitched it. “Nice. But you’re going to totally ruin some of my best kiss-and-make-it better pickup lines.”

“Those lines never worked anyway,” his brother told the angel.

“They did,” Dean insisted.

“They did not.” Sam was putting away the needle and thread, not mentioning anything about the bruises under his own shirt. Dean opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated. If Castiel said no, Sam would feel like crap, and Dean would be angry at the angel. If he said yes… there was no downside to him saying yes, but there wasn’t much chance of it, either.

Smart money would have been to keep his trap shut and let it go. Sam wasn’t hurt that badly, and –

“You’re injured as well.” 

“It’s nothing.”

“He cracked a couple of ribs.” 

Sam looked at him like he’d just told the angel all the deepest darkest Winchester secrets. 

“You did,” he said, unrepentant.

“May I?” And Castiel lifted one hand, not touching, but clearly offering. 

Sam sighed, then all the argument went out of his body, and he lifted his shirt for inspection.

Dean leaned back and crossed his arms across his now-scarless chest, the corner of his mouth turning up just a little as his brother felt the zap of AngelCareWeDeliver. And then Castiel raised his head and looked at him, and Dean felt the smile deepen, just a little more.

“You should come on a hunt with us,” he said. “Burn off some of that smiting energy on a fessik, or –“

“I have more important things to do,” Castiel said, his voice the deep growl that only comes out when Dean’s said something particularly pissy-making, intentionally or otherwise. “And so do you.”

Dean’s smile becomes a full-out smirk. It was probably wrong that in the middle of all this, his favorite hobby was arguing with a pissy angel….


	3. love gets lost

_There’s not enough room in this world for my pain  
Signals crossed and love gets lost and time passed makes it plain   
Of all my demon spirits I need you the most   
I’m in love with your ghost _

“Cas. C’mon, Cas.”

He’s leaning against the car, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, and he shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be praying to a feathered asshole, a winged _dick_ who came and went according to his own plan, who could make Dean feel like the most ignorant ass in the universe and the most… whatever.

He’d stopped trying to figure Castiel out a long time ago. Castiel was an angel, a hardass soldier who took orders and didn’t take sass.

Except there were times when he’d swear Cas was laughing, behind that bland face and clueless look. Laughing at him yeah but sometimes laughing with him, too. Him and Sam, and…

And there hadn’t been much to laugh about, lately, had there?

“Damn it, Cas.”

“Hello, Dean.”

“Finally.” He turned to face the angel, doing a quick inventory to make sure nothing was out of place. A fleck of dirt might not mean anything to humans, but on an angel it was a whole load of crap coming down on them.

“You look terrible.”

That almost made Dean laugh. “Yeah. Well I’m feeling like crap, y’know?”

“Yes.”

Of course he does. He knows.

Why have you called me down here, Dean?”

“Because….” Suddenly it was hard to say it. It shouldn’t be, it should be open mouth spew words. He’s good with that. Except when it matters. He swallowed, hard, and rubbed the back of his hand against his chin.

“Talk to me, Dean.”

The phrase was straight out of Sam’s mouth, and Dean laughed out loud this time, and the words were easy, suddenly.

“Adam. Is there…”

Cas looked away, and Dean’s heart sank. Not that he thought there’d been a chance but he’d thought maybe there might be a chance, maybe.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I was able to…sneak Sam away, because Lucifer was arrogant, and careless. And even then… you saw how badly that went.”

Dean had thought, once, that angels didn’t feel sorrow, or guilt. Castiel pretty much shot that down singlehandedly.

“Once, it was possible. Twice…Michael would be on alert, and he… he would be even more possessive of his vessel now. That is assuming…”

“Assuming they haven’t torn him apart, lacking Sam to play with?” That was why he’d come out here to call Cas, away from Sam. That was guilt his brother didn’t need, a possibility he didn’t want Sam even thinking about.

“Yes.”

“Damn it.”

Castiel raised a hand and then lowered it, then took hold of Dean’s arm in one smooth motion, his hand resting on his upper arm, fingers curling around the flesh. Dean could feel it through his shirt, raising goosebumps. “If I could…” There were so many regrets in those three words, so many apologies, Dean couldn’t listen any more. Everyone was so damned sorry.

“Yeah, I know.”

They were all fucked, one way or another.


	4. whispered in a hush

_Dark and dangerous like a secret it gets whispered in a hush (don’t tell a soul)_

_And when I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush (don’t tell a soul)_

_When you kiss me like a lover and you sting me like a viper_

_I go follow to the river play your memory like the piper_

 

 

"When Castiel first laid his hands on you in Hell, he was lost!”

He can’t deny the charge. He won’t deny it: to do so would be a greater lie than any he has ever told. He had been lost, perhaps from the very first. They had been sent to find the Righteous Man, to save him from damnation…

He knows now that they were sent too late, intentionally. That Dean Winchester was to be saved only after he broke the first Seal, only after Armageddon was set in motion. Only after the gentle light that filled his soul was sullied and torn, the love that had driven a righteous man forever doubtful, forever hesitant, shaded with the belief that nothing good could come his way, no trust could survive in his presence. So human, Dean was, in his pain… so human, in his refusal to give in, forever fighting for others even when he no longer believed himself worthy.

How could Castiel not fall, when he gripped that soul?

Angels were not all-knowing. He was a soldier, Created for battle, for defense and chastisement. He had not understood that the front line he walked would have to be fought another way.

Not until it was almost too late. Until his arrogance, his _pride_ , had caused him to fall further and darker than Hell could ever imagine, until the Leviathan shattered him, shattered his sense-of-self and drove his Grace into hiding.

He knows he is hiding, now. The veneer of madness is too thin to protect him; he seethes, underneath, with the knowledge of what he has done, what he has become. He longs to thicken the shell, to disappear forever inside it…

But he cannot.

He has fallen, he is lost…but the way out holds out its hands to him, calling his name.

_Cas. Cas, man, where are you?_

He holds up the game board, tries to let his madness speak for him. But it will not be enough. He will be pulled, struggling, from the rivers of Lethe once again, tasked with his sword and shield to do what cannot be done, what was never intended to be done.

He was not sent to perch upon Dean Winchester’s shoulder. He will fight, instead, at his side.

But not yet. Not just yet. For now, he needs to hide…

The walls are white, the sheets stiff, and he can feel the demon passing in the hall, her presence an odd comfort, her judgment tempered with amusement, not disappointment.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

And when he sleeps, he dreams of the reservoir’s waters, closing over his head.


	5. the fingers of your fire

_And I feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me_   
_But I would walk into the fingers of your fire willingly_   
_Dance the edge of sanity I’ve never been this close_   
_In love with your ghost_

 

“Brother, we need to leave. Now.”

Dean pressed his arm under the lobison’s neck, its ugly half-pig face scowling at him, trying to get its tusks somewhere that could do damage.

“Not yet. This ugly fucker knows where the angel is.”

“You mean like half a dozen others you’ve questioned and gutted? Dean, if you die ain’t nobody getting out, not you not me and not your angel. Come on.”

The vampire looked around, not so much nervous as primed for a fight. In Purgatory it wasn’t if something was going to attack you, but what direction they’d come from.

“I can’t…” The lobson shifted, and Dean broke its neck, letting the body crumple to the ground. He wanted to find Cas, he needed to find Cas, either to beat the crap out of him for disappearing, or… or haul him out by the scruff of his neck so he could yell at him topside for disappearing, Dean wasn’t sure which. But he wasn’t going without the angel.

_And what if he’s dead already?_ The voice that wouldn’t leave him alone asked, a malicious hiss in the meat of his brain. _What if he didn’t run out on you but something ganked him? His body decaying somewhere, covered in leaves, never found…_

The idea was impossible, and he rejected it. Even in Purgatory, he would know if Cas were gone, really gone. Unless he’d been yanked back to Heaven…

_Gone and left you behind,_ the voice agreed, gleefully. _Dead weight, useless_ human _weight_.

No. Dean knew he was here. Could feel it. There was a tightness in his chest, a steady pressure that meant Cas was around, somewhere. The profound bond went both ways, although he’d never told the angel that, never told anyone that. When he was nearby – not in Heaven, not consumed by Leviathan – Dean knew. Not where, not how, nothing actually useful, but the angel-sense was there.

“Come on,” he said, shifting the makeshift blade into carrying pose. “Let’s go.”

“Fucking finally,” Benny said in relief.

#

“Hey Cas. I’m hoping you got your ears on but at this point I don’t even know. Lost track of how long it’s been. Benny says days don’t matter here, and if you try to count ‘em you’ll just… well, he says it’s a bad idea and he’s probably right.

Me taking advice from a vampire. Crazy, huh? But no more than anything here. 

I should be tired, Cas. I don’t sleep much, even less than usual, and we’re always running, fighting. But I’m not. I feel … awake. Not hyper-alert, not like Sam gets when he’s been researching too long and needs to lay off the coffee, but just really…awake.

I think I might be losing it, Cas.”

#

The angel pauses, lifting his face to the murky sunlight, feeling the breeze prickle around him, a sense of urgency abated, just for that moment. Prayers are pointless here, they do not carry to Heaven. They cannot be answered. An angel’s presence here, even more than in Hell, is to call forth suffering, not salvation.

“Forgive me, Dean,” he whispers, and keeps moving away.


	6. pierce my spirit

_Unknowing captor you’ll never know how much you_   
_Pierce my spirit but I can’t touch you_   
_Can you hear it a cry to be free_   
_Oh I’m forever under lock and key_   
_As you pass through me_

 

Sam’s getting worse. 

Those three words rattle around in his head like there’s nothing else there. _Sam’s getting worse._ They’re not an accusation any longer, the repetition wearing down the edges until the words don’t cut any more, just knock new bruises into him. The trials are destroying his brother, piece by piece.

Dean finds himself in the firing range, standing in front of a target, picking off his shots without conscious thought: chest, head, upper thigh, the way his dad trained him. He’s so tired. The clarity he’d gotten in Purgatory faded, the certainty he’d felt chasing the yellow-eyed demon now a sick hesitation, second-guessing. He pushes on through because what the hell else were they going to do? Stop?

Stopping doesn’t happen, not for them. Not for Winchesters. They don’t even get to die for very long. 

_Bobby’s dead. Sammy’s getting worse. Cas is gone. Soon you’ll be alone._

He doesn’t let himself think that far. Pull the target, reload the gun, reset the target, fire. Automatic: muscle memory. Deal with every day, deal with every hour, every threat, every thing he can do to focus on the minute he has, the minute when they still have a chance, still might accomplish something that will last.

They stopped the Apocalypse. You’d think that would get them, he doesn’t know, a retirement plan, or something?

Instead, it’s like nothing counts. Nothing he’s done ever gets them a break. 

“Cas, what the hell do I do?” It’s not a question any more, no longer a prayer. Castiel is gone. Lost. He’s lost him. Sam… he’s losing Sam. It’s too much, too much to ask of anyone human, and he knows that when they figure out the third trial – and they will figure it out because they’re fucking Winchesters – Sammy will be gone, too. Maybe dead, maybe just so faded and weak he’s not there any more. 

Dean’s heart can’t take any more. Everything that’s been asked, everything he’s given, that will be too much, and if he knew how to lay down and die he’d do it, then.

The phone rings, and it’s Garth. Another hunt, three mysterious deaths near an old clocktower in Alabama. Probable salt-and-burn, two days in and out. He can take Sam, keep an eye on him, but keep him out of the actual action.

“Yeah, we got it.” 

Garth’s still talking but Dean’s tuned him out, writing down the details and then hanging up. He probably said goodbye but maybe not, he’s not sure Garth even notices, so tied up in the sound of his own voice. Good man, Garth. Not Bobby, but gets the job done.

Sammy’s going to die. Cas is… gone. He doesn’t think about that, focuses on the things he can do, here and now. Make Sam eat, and maybe sleep. Keep Kevin alive. Answer the phone. Gank monsters, save people.

They’ll rip his heart out, shred his skin and suck the marrow out of his bones, all for the asking, and he’ll still keep on. Because when he dies, Dean knows, he’s not going to see either of them again.


	7. the sand beneath me slips

_Now I see your face before me; I would launch a thousand ships_  
 _To bring your heart back to my island as the sand beneath me slips_   
_I burn up in your presence and I know now how it feels_  
 _To be weakened like Achilles with you always at my heels_

 

The muscles in his arms were quivering, pushed too far, ready to snap. Sam pulled again, raising his chin over the bar, and released slowly, easing his body back down, until his feet touched the floor and the pressure on his arms was released.

“Don’t push it.” Dean, standing in the doorway, his face placid to hide the worry inside. He could read Dean-sign now, all the little things he’d ignored before, in his arrogance, his every-day selfishness.

“Yeah, I know. I’m being careful.”

He was. He was eating three meals a day, real meals, not just half a bowl of soup and some crackers. And he was sleeping, nearly five hours most nights. And he wasn’t going to push his body into a relapse.

There was no point. They weren’t hunting. They were waiting.

Every night when he closed his eyes, he saw them, gorgeous streaks of light against the sky, every child’s dream of an asteroid shower tangled with an adult’s horror of knowing.

They didn’t know. That was the real problem. They didn’t know what happened, how or…

It took them forever to get back to the bunker: Sam still didn’t remember most of the drive, only flashes of Dean’s face, lit by the dash, his jaw set and his eyes fixed on the road. Kevin had been sitting at the foot of the stairs, his knapsack at his feet, head buried in his hands, body still shaking. “The alarms wouldn’t stop ringing,” he said, over and over. “The lights kept flashing and the alarms were ringing and I didn’t know how to make it stop!”

Sam had felt the world change before. Had felt the subtle but clear shift of reality, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but always definite. This was less than, and more a slow crumbling of the ground underneath them. And his brother was crumbling, too.

“Where are you, Cas?” he asked. And then, because he couldn’t help it, knowing he of all people had no right to ask, “What did you do?”

#

Every step was agony. The knee joints crackled, the shoulders ached, the spine felt as though it had been broken in two but most of all he was aware of how badly his feet hurt. Toes, heel, arch, ankles, each informing his brain with every step that this was too much, that this was too far.

He refused to stop walking. If he stopped, even for a moment, he might never start again.

_Cas, what have you done?_

Not his voice, asking that. Dean’s. And not angry, not threatening, but sorrowful, the sadness of disappointment, of regret and exhaustion. Because once again, he had ‘made a mess’ and once again he was returning to Dean for help.

_“I don’t know, man. I don’t think this one can be fixed.”_

He cringed, even knowing it was his own mind putting those words into Dean’s mouth, setting that look of distance in his eyes. 

The blacktop retained the day’s heat, the night air cold and sharp. He had shed the coat hours ago, the sweat pooling on his back and under his arms. A rag of regret clung to him but he shed that, too. He was not what he had been, why cling to the trappings?

What was he, now?

_We’re family. I need you._ He clung to those sounds, placed them under his feet not to ease the pain but make it bearable, make there be a reason to bear it.

A step and another step, the pain a reminder of what he had done, what he had become. He would make his way back to the bunker, to the Winchesters. To Dean. And then he would know. If this - if _he_ \- could be fixed.


	8. no worse at most

_This bitter pill to swallow is the silence that I keep_  
 _It poisons me I can’t swim free the river is too deep_  
 _Though I’m baptized by your touch I am no worse at most_   
_In love with your ghost_

 

“Duck!”

Cas ducked, even as his brain wondered what a water fowl had to do with avoiding the swing of the ghost’s ax. Sam barreled into the room, the shotgun already raised, and the echo of the blast twined with the outraged howl of the ghost as it disappeared.

“Now, Dean!” Sam yelled, racking the shotgun again in case the maddened spirit came back. Mr. Adamson might have been a mild-mannered CPA in life, but in death he was a vicious son of a bitch.

A long pause, and then a whoop came from outside, and both hunters felt the mood of the house change, the tension bleeding out of the air and leaving it an ordinary, if rundown, split-level.

“You okay?” Sam was making what he had learned was his worried-but-not-that-worried face, what Dean called bitchface #7.

“I think so.” The ordinary, daily indignities of being human still took him by surprise, but getting hurt, feeling pain, he had adjusted to seemingly overnight. He took inventory of his body anyway. “Nothing broken or bleeding. I may have accumulated a few bruises in uncomfortable places, however.”

Human flesh took so much punishment, merely by living.

“I think we could all use with a few days off,” Sam said. “Heal up. Sleep for about eleven hours. Maybe even twelve.”

“That would be nice.”

For three months now, he’s been learning how to be a hunter. How to be human. He was also learning how to lie. Not the lies he had told as an angel, the manipulative handling of words like weapons to achieve the desired end goal. These were lies of easement, of _smoothing._ White lies, Dean called them. The lies that allowed other people to feel better: Sam wanted to believe that getting a good night’s sleep would cure everything, and so Cas would agree with him.

Dean had never told him that white lies made the _teller_ feel worse. But he had learned that about Dean, too, long before he Fell: the other man assumed worse as a default state.

Dean. Had he finished burning the bones? Was he all right?

They staggered out of the split-level house, closing the door gently behind them, trying hard not to look at the smoke rising from the side garden where the not-so-grieving widow had buried the bones. Dean was already leaning against the Impala, a smear of something dark across his face, his expression a mix of triumph and exhaustion.

Cas touched the smear with two fingers, finding it dry and caked. Mud, and blood. Dean shook off the touch, but gently, a rueful smile that said he knew what the gentle touch wished it could do, telling him it’s appreciated, but not needed, it’s nothing that won’t heal on its own.

Small lies, to tell a greater truth.

Sam, oblivious or ignoring them, groaned, feeling a few bruises of his own. “You ever notice that a simple salt-and-burn never is?”

“Get in the car, Sammy,” his brother said, opening the passenger side door. “You too, Cas. Anyway, count your blessings. I’m pretty sure the mussus planted poison ivy over the grave.” 

“You were poisoned?” Cas is on alert, but cautiously so: even Dean would not be so blasé of such a thing.

“Contact dermatitis,” Sam said, as they got into the car. “He’s going to be itchy and grumpy for a few days, but some antihistamines and an oatmeal bath will take care of the worst of it.”

“Oatmeal baths are miserable. I hate ‘em. I really hate poison ivy. And killer suburban housewives who feel the urge to keep hubby nearby after she does the deed. Why can’t killers finish the job and burn the bones instead of dumping ‘em, anyway?”

Dean’s grousing is normal, familiar. Cas sinks into the comfort of the back seat, easing his body against the upholstery trying not to remember the other times he has ridden in the back: winging in, in response to Dean’s prayers, appearing with news, or slumped against the back, too damaged to heal himself, his batteries too low to call on his grace…

_I’m fine._ The first white lie a Winchester learns. _I’m okay._

Sam is healing, Sam is not okay. Dean is alive, Dean is not okay. Cas – he checks himself, instinctively, but knows the truth of his lie: he is human. He is not fine.

But he isn’t alone.

**Author's Note:**

> An older fic, finally getting posted here. Next time I think “hey, songfic, how hard can it be?” please throw cold water on me.
> 
> Not all characters named appear in all parts.
> 
> Title and lyrics from The Indigo Girls.


End file.
